Prison powwow: Native families connect with their loved ones behind bars

Ryan Wixon (center) looks at the camera as he takes a break from drumming. His daughters, Ahyoka, 10, (left) and Lily, 7, (right) gather around him. (Grace Deng/Washington State Standard)

In line to enter a state prison north of Olympia, 10-year-old Ahyoka Wixon cannot stay still.

“My dad’s friend made me a jingle dress!” she says to a friendly man standing off to the side of the line, adorned in cultural regalia from head to toe. Her grandmother, 62-year-old Tina Wixon, pulls her away, reminding her not to bother strangers — but the man doesn’t seem to mind.

Ahyoka’s dad, 39-year-old Ryan Wixon, is a former amateur MMA fighter who went by “War Path.” He’s also in prison, serving a 20-year sentence for his role in a fist fight that turned into a shoot out. He has 13 years left on his sentence.

“It was an unfortunate time in my life,” says Wixon, who is Shoshone.

When he sees his two girls in the visitor’s center of the prison, they come running and he swoops them up into his arms.

Ahyoka and 7-year-old Lily Wixon are there to participate in Washington Corrections Center’s annual powwow on July 11 alongside their father, who will be singing and drumming. Wixon grew up participating in powwows and living in and out of the reservation, he said. Ahyoka’s name means “she brings happiness” in Lakota.

Indigenous people are incarcerated at higher rates than any other group in Washington state, and the disparity between Indigenous and white incarceration has roughly doubled in the past decade. Advocates attribute the disparity to over policing of Indigenous communities and high rates of poverty.

The powwow is organized by Tribal Sons , the prison’s Native affinity group. Wixon and other Native leaders in prison said they’re working on rehabilitating themselves and their fellow Native prisoners, and the powwow makes “all the difference.”

“Culture’s a beautiful thing,” Wixon said.

The powwow is a family affair: Prisoners — some in khakis, some in cultural garb — hug, mingle and laugh with family, until it’s difficult to know at first glance who’s incarcerated and who’s not. Around 150 to 175 people were in attendance, estimated Shawn Carnahan, the prison’s religious coordinator.

LEFT: Ryan Wixon and his daughter, Lily, run across the field at Washington Corrections Center. (Grace Deng/Washington State Standard). RIGHT: Visitors and prisoners dance at Washington Corrections Center’s powwow. (Grace Deng/Washington State Standard)

Charles Longshore, a lead organizer of the powwow who’s serving a nearly 36-year sentence, said the powwow is a “day of unification and reunification.” It’s different from visitation, Longshore said: “You’re not connecting in a spiritual sense.”

“It’s one day a year that incarcerated people get to show the people they love a different side of them,” Longshore said. “They still believe that we have not changed. It’s a day we can show them who we are.”

‘It brings us together in community’

While the powwows have been happening at Washington Corrections Center for years, the tribes weren’t as involved in the past, said Longshore, a citizen of Skokomish Indian Tribe.

This year, a Skokomish tribal representative, Kimberly Miller, helped lead the ceremony, and the prison’s superintendent, Dean Mason, began the event by acknowledging that the prison rests on Skokomish and Squaxin land, a first for the prison’s powwows.

Justice Raquel Montoya-Lewis — the first Native American on the state Supreme Court — was also in attendance. Longshore says that in a private moment, he took Montoya-Lewis into the gallery of artwork being presented at the powwow by prisoners, and presented her with a “Lifetime Achievement Award.” She was brought to tears, he said.

“I took her to her table, sat and hung out with her,” Longshore said. “[I said] this is a day in which you can take a look around and see people for who they truly are. Take a look around. Look at the laughter, look at the jokes, look at the dancing.”

“That’s what the powwow does,” Longshore said. “It brings us together in community for one day when we get to almost not be here anymore.”

About an hour or so into the powwow, Miller hands the microphone to Ahyoka, who was now wearing the jingle dress her dad’s friend made her: 43-year-old Hector “Tito” Artiz, who also made the drum Wixon and Artiz were using at the powwow.

“Hello!” Ahyoka yells into the mic with unabashed confidence, causing a wave of feedback. “Thank you for coming!”

When she hands the mic back, Miller calls her a young leader in the making.

As Wixon drums and sings, his younger daughter, Lily, leaves the powwow circle to cling onto him. Wixon asks her if she wants to join Ahyoka in the circle. Lily shakes her head. She wants to stay with him.

“That’s sweet,” Wixon says, squeezing her with his free arm.

Soon, Wixon will have to say goodbye to his daughters. The powwow began an hour late because prison security staff had to have a briefing, as all the guards who are usually in charge during visitation weren’t on duty. The prisoners were told they could go for an additional hour to make up for it — until prison staff decide that they can only spare anot her half hour.

For now, though, Ahyoka joins Lily and her father, and Wixon continues to drum and sing, his daughters wrapped around him.

The post Prison powwow: Native families connect with their loved ones behind bars appeared first on Washington State Standard .